The Institute of Corporate Directors recognized 85 publicly-listed companies that rated highly for corporate governance practices based on ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard.
ICD chairman lawyer Cesar Villanueva said during the awarding ceremony on Friday night that these 85 companies achieved a score of 80 points and above in the ACGS assessment.
Ayala Land Inc., China Banking Corp. and Globe Telecom Inc. received the highest 5-arrow recognition during the ceremony for scoring between 120 to 130 points.
Twelve firms including Aboitiz Power Corp., Ayala Corp., Bank of the Philippine Islands, BDO Unibank, Belle Corp., First Gen Corp., Manila Water Co. Inc. Philippine National Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., SM Investments Corp., SM Prime Holdings Inc. and The Philippine Stock Exchange Inc. received 4-arrow recognition for scoring between 110 and 119 points.
Meanwhile, 18 firms obtained 3-arrow recognition for scoring 100 to 109 points, while 16 companies received 2-arrow recognition for scoring 90 to 99 points.
Thirty-seven companies received 1-arrow recognition for scoring between 80 and 89 points.
Villanueva said despite significant improvement in the number of companies, a lot needed to be done as the average score of all 264 Philippine PLCs reached 73.80 points. He said 67 percent of listed firms scored below 80 points.
This was lower compared to ASEAN peers like Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, where the average score of listed firms was over 85 points.
Based on the assessment, only 34 Philippine PLCs or 9 percent of all PLCs have independent directors as board chairmen.
Only 25 PLCs set measurable targets for board diversity, and 28 firms, or 10 percent, used external professional search firms for nomination for directors.
ACGS is an instrument for the assessment and ranking of PLCs in six participating ASEAN countries— Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The ACGS is an initiative of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum. It is aimed at raising the corporate governance standards and practices among ASEAN PLCs, making well-governed ASEAN PLCs attractive to investors and promoting ASEAN as an investment asset class.
The scorecard covers the following five areas: rights of shareholders; equitable treatment of shareholders; the role of stakeholders; disclosure and transparency; and responsibilities of the board.
